Archive for March, 2012

As a follow-up to Lollapalooza 2012’s ‘early bird’ ticket sale this past weekend (which sold out in 20 minutes), the festival launched a teaser campaign via digital screens at several iconic El stops in Chicago, featuring song lyrics from confirmed headliners at this year’s show. Via the powers of online sleuthing and the folks at Wine and Pop, the lyrics have been traced back to four potential performers: Die Antwoord, The Weeknd, Justice, and Jack White.

The campaign from Lolla (and festival-promoters C3 Presents) not only takes the standard, web-based lineup release and flips it on its head, but it also provides an interactive and thought-provoking experience for consumers at some of the most iconic and high-traffic locations in Chicago. While the full lineup won’t be released until April 11, this campaign helps bridge the gap from the pre-sale, while building buzz in an original and dare I say…freeky fashion.

If there’s one phrase that annoys me more than any other, it has to be the often over-used and misappropriated: “in this economy”. While the expression certainly has its place, it’s often used as a cop-out. Sometimes all it takes is a little creativity and a strategic

Enter Dollar Shave Club. A new online start-up dedicated to providing “A Great Shave For a Few Bucks a Month”.

Photo Credit: DollarShaveClub.com

If there’s one phrase that annoys me more than any other, it has to be the often over-used: “in this economy”. While the expression certainly has its place given our current financial landscape, it has also seemingly translated into a mantra for the risk-averse. When looking at how start-ups succeed within this risk-averse world, sometimes all it takes is a little creativity and a strategic framework for providing consumers with something they truly need.

Enter Dollar Shave Club. A new online start-up dedicated to providing “A Great Shave For a Few Bucks a Month“. As the campaign (and any scruff-faced man) will tell you, purchasing name-brand razors each month can run up quite a bill. Not to mention that they’re usually protected by high-powered security at your local pharmacy, and purchasing one requires bolt-cutters, an employee escort and a call from the President.

At the heart of the campaign is a hilarious viral video, which plays on everything from unemployment to unnecessary shave-tech, to most of your hard-earned dollars going straight to Roger Federer’s pockets. There’s even a Cornelius Vanderbilt reference for you history nerds out there.

Blogging to you all from the epicenter of hippies, nerds, and hobos, known to most as the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. While the first two groups often claim most of the attention during the festival, it was the homeless that became the center of a revolutionary and controversial marketing campaign from ad agency BBH Labs and Front Steps Shelter, a local non-profit. The campaign designated 14 local homeless people as 4G hotspots, along with a simplistic (and slightly offensive) t-shirt that read “I’m (Melvin), a 4G hotspot.” This bold initiative takes the age-old street newspaper vendor into the digital age, by providing a precious commodity to techies in Austin. While the campaign will seemingly end amidst cries of exploitation when SXSW closes it’s doors, personally I’m just happy that Melvin let me get this post up in under four hours. Take that nerds!

From HD to 3D, in today’s television, visual experiences keep getting bigger and better, all in an effort to get onscreen images looking as close to real life as possible. That same visual aspiration of course holds true for website design.

These days, that aspiration takes the form of parallax scrolling, a term many people may have heard in the ‘80s in reference to video game design, is described by Webster’s dictionary as “a difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object.” What’s that mean? It’s simply the layering of graphics to create an illusion of dimension and 3D depth.

From subtle navigational purposes to enhanced creative design, parallax scrolling can help differentiate your website from the portfolio next door. It’s a fresh alternative to Flash and HTML. It’s a relatively easy tool that keeps users interactive and engaged.

Some of the largest and most visible companies are experimenting with parallax scrolling to create award-winning work — after all, what brand doesn’t want more interactivity and excitement for their online consumer?

Want some cool examples of parallax scrolling at its best? Check out these sites to experience the Web in a whole new way.

MKTGers — who in the heck are these crazy people, anyway? It’s a question that’s been posed many times over the years, and one that has as many answers as askers. In our new monthly feature we’ll select one lucky staff member among our proud herd, asking them three of the hardest-hitting, most thought-provoking questions we could conjure. Softballers we are not.

Our first meet-and-greet is Charlie DeCrescenzo, an assistant account executive in the New York office.

Meet the 'Stach-tastic Charlie D.

Q1. Who was your favorite superhero as a kid?
A: Batman. Just a normal billionaire who kicks butt.
Q2. What is the most exciting thing you’ve ever done?
A: Cliff-diving in the Thousand Islands.
Q3. What is the best part of your job at MKTG INC?
A: Talking about beach volleyball every day.